BART serial flasher, rapist sentenced for exposure

A San Francisco man convicted more than two decades ago for a violent rape and who has repeatedly exposed himself to women in public was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years in state prison for exposing himself to a woman on BART last year.

Kenneth Ray Burton, 52, did not express emotion when he received the sentence for the July 15, 2006, incident. Burton was arrested by BART police after fondling himself in front of a woman in her 30s on a train traveling from San Francisco to Millbrae, San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said.

“He thinks women like it when he exposes himself to them,” Wagstaffe said. “He thinks he’s doing them a favor.”

Burton pleaded no contest Aug. 2 to five counts of felony indecent exposure. This felony is Burton’s second felony strike in the state. He was charged 25 years ago for sexual assault in what Wagstaffe called a violent rape that involved multiple victims. Wagstaffe did not have further details about the rape.

Since serving a prison sentence for the rape, Burton has been implicated on two occasions for exposing himself in public to women in a nonviolent way.

Prosecutors had sought a lengthy prison sentence because a physiological examination concluded that Burton has “an uncontrollable predilection to expose himself to women,” Wagstaffe said, though he added that psychiatrists have determined he now poses little threat of sexual assault.

“[The sentence] seems like a long time for a flasher, but we were wondering if 13 years was enough,” Wagstaffe said.

In last year’s incident, Burton approached a woman on BART. He was holding a guitar case when he sat down opposite the woman in an empty BART car, exposing his genitals and masturbating while looking at the victim, according to prosecutors.